


The Way it Should Be

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 02:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Combining three prompts: “I think I’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me”, “You’re so fucking hot when you’re mad”,“Do you want to kiss as bad as I do right now”
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	The Way it Should Be

He’s still processing her story when she throws the curveball of the decade. His Scully asking if she’s made the right choice in life. It opens something in his chest, something raw. He’s fatigued from the flight, sure, but the pulling at his lips, the tingling in his throat, the sudden expanse of heat across his skin, is such a visceral reaction that he has to tamp down his natural inclination to reach for her, to wrap her in his arms and cry on her shoulder. This is a conversation they should be having in a car on a winding forest road, not on his couch.

“Mmm. And all the… choices would then lead to this very moment. One wrong turn, and… we wouldn’t be sitting here together. Well, that says a lot. That says a lot, a lot, a lot. That’s probably more than we should be getting into at this late hour.”

He turns to look at her and she’s asleep. Of course, she is. It fits. His Scully could sleep anywhere, even pondering humanity’s greatest quandaries. Still, the world will keep turning even while their answers go unspoken, even as they sleep.

He covers her with a blanket and she snuffs softly through her nose. It’s hard to turn away from her, to leave her there. What if he misses some new expression he’s never seen? What if the changing light in his apartment highlights a different shade of chestnut in her hair? What if the freckles dusting her skin glow more in the small hours? This new tenderness blooming inside is leading him, them, somewhere. The tug of destiny. He feels it.

He tucks a lock of her hair off her face and is overcome with the desire to tell her the secrets of his soul.

“I think I’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me.” It’s barely a whisper, this furtive, cowardly confession, but it resonates like the loudest crack of thunder through his mind. His fear is not for himself, but for her. To choose him, would leave her vulnerable to his frailties, his darkness, endangering her in a way that merely being his partner never could.

She stirs. He wonders if she has heard him. A vessel for his heart’s most profound professions. She’s always been that, he supposes. But confessing a wish for a peg-leg, to meet Bigfoot, to know what happened to his sister, whilst at the time he said them seemed a vital component of his psyche, now seemed trite.

He pads out of the living room, turns back at the door to take in how luminous it appears, with its unexpected guest. He wonders if his chest is glowing on the inside, too, in the wake of his revelation.

It’s some time later when she slips in beside him. She’s naked and he’s not in the least surprised. This path they’ve been walking has suddenly cleared. It’s astonishing, how bright it is, this new future of theirs. Fear dissolves inside him. He loves her. He doesn’t just think it. He is certain.

“You left me,” she says. It’s not the opening line he was expecting.

“You fell asleep.” He props himself up on his elbow. The shadowy light in his bedroom casts her as an ethereal being in his bed, half-draped in a sheet, hair mussed, eyes glinting.

“I thought we were…I told you that story because…”

“I listened, Scully. Believe me. I know why you…”

She twists her head to the side and in profile, he can see the strength of her beliefs in her jawline. Her snort of frustration is both charming and sexy.

“You made me come to you,” she says and he can see how hard it was for her to say that, let alone do it. A tear tracks down her face.

“You’re so fucking hot when you’re mad,” he says, running a finger down that stubborn cheek.

She half-giggles, half-cries, sniffing furiously. “You made me come to you and now you’re laughing at me.”

He shakes his head, wiping away more of her briny confession, “I would never,” he breathes. “I would never laugh at something so brave. You came to me. And I’m not sure I would have come to you…maybe this was just the way it was supposed to be?”

She slides down, facing him, pillow under her neck. Her forefinger lays gently across his lips. “This is fate?”

“I’ll take it,” he says.

Her eyes glisten still. He wonders if she’s still thinking about all the other lives she could have lived. But she came to him. She made her choice. She paid attention to the signs along the way.

He strokes her hair and she shuffles closer to him, chest to chest, her breasts soft between them. His cock stirs and she makes an appreciative noise in the base of her throat.

“Hey, Scully,” he murmurs. “Do you want to kiss as bad as I do right now?”

She doesn’t speak, simply nods. He pulls her warm face to him, kissing her, kissing her again and again, knowing this is the way it should be. The way it always will be.


End file.
